Day 1 – New look blog, new NaPoWriMo season … same old chaos

Having successfully completed last year’s NaPoWriMo I was all set to come into this year, with a plan, well-organised & a task list of things I wanted to achieve. (I have a folder of articles I think might be great starting points for poems; I have ideas for poems which when written will go in yet into yet-to-be-completed collections; I have snippets of lines I want to expand into a poem; I have titles without poems beneath them.)

Naturally that was all knocked out the window within the first 24 hours …

To be fair, I have submitted 11 poems to 5 separate competitions in the past 3 days (including one which was only sent off at 11.51pm to make a midnight deadline — thanks Sarah R for late night editing advice, we didn’t fix everything but fixed a lot more than I would have by myself.)

& so to today…

On Wednesday that self-same Sarah, challenged me to write a poem (actually three) for her. The prompts were:

Jazz (she knows my fondness for the form)
“I have been called …”
Resurrection

I have been efficient (or lazy, depending on your perspective) & combined them into one glorious evocation which cogently & (moderately) briefly articulates my views of the genre (including some of my favourite quotes)

((heehee, chuckling already just thinking of some of them))

(((nothing like making enemies on day 1 of NaPoWriMo)))

I think of it as a Comic Narrative Collage Poem (for those writing essays on it)

NB: I openly concede I have occasionally appropriated &/or transmutated the words of others without attribution, but as the wise ones say: stealing from one author is plagiarism, stealing from many is research

& so:

*****

litany: a fair & comprehensive critique of Jazz

in the beginning
i have been called many names
few of them kind
simply for expressing
not my distaste, but rather
my total lack of interest
in jazz

musical interlude I
just so i’m being fair (ho ho ho)
i’ve dug out a few old mp3’s
(sorry purists & your obsession
with lossless files the size
of our larger country towns)
& they’re in the background now
helping give me context
Sonny Rollins & Dave Brubeck’s foursome
& Miles Davies who’s feeling Kind of Blue
(no kidding if you’re listening to what you’re playing)

research: google proving
jazz sucks — 1.39 million googles
i hate jazz — 23 million googles
why jazz is bad — 122 million googles

quotes by better minds than i
sure it might be cheap & easy shots
to repeat some zingers from better minds than i
about why jazz is not the wonderful art form
its many beret wearers contend
so with that commendation
i gleefully will

the cons
like toddlers let loose in a music room

music invented for the torture of imbeciles

it has a bad name because some of it’s crap & it’s boring

choppy noise pretending to make music out of traffic jams

live jazz — two words which find my hands instinctively shooting up to protect my ears

there are two types of people in this world, people who like jazz & people who would rather perforate their ear drums with rusty knitting needles than listen to it

like the kind of a man you wouldn’t want your daughter associating with
(though some take this as a compliment)

& as el Barto famously claims
ahhh… cartoons America’s only native art form — i don’t count jazz because it sucks

musical interlude II
hmmm, old boy’s club isn’t doing it for me
so have downloaded tracks from Ambrose Akinmusire’s album
“The Imagined Savior is Far Easier to Paint” (wtf?)
(apparently he’s a hip hot young thing on the jazz scene)
so how’s that for open minded
what a fair & balanced old fox am i
to boldly go where i have long avoided going

testimonials from actual people
i love jazz! i listen to it in bed — it helps me fall asleep
i put Theolonius Monk on for brunch when my in-laws come over
it’s so soothing — i play it when i’m studying or reading
i always play it after sex — helps the ladies out of my bed & into their taxi quicker

claims against its greatness
it’s elitist, pretentious
bastion of testosterone
did i mention catch all for pretension
or at least many pretentious folk flock to it

two words: smooth jazz
two more words: jazz fusion

it’s mostly dreck

musical interlude III
that wasn’t working either so gone back to basics:
“Let’s Get Acquainted with Jazz — For People Who Hate Jazz”
[a mono vinyl rip] — & suddenly i’m transported
to the mid 50’s & the little lady is bringing out
whores derves for our happening dinner party

the pros
if you’re expecting a resurrection
where i claim after listening to it
i am now a convert, sorry to disappoint
however in the interest of fairness

jazz isn’t: methodical, but isn’t messy either
(oh, that makes sense now, thank you)

jazz is: smooth & cool … rage … flows like water … never seems to begin or end (well it never seems to end, i’ll give you that, sorry sorry)

((i know i probably should refrain from commenting
on all of these positive ones — but it’s just too much fun))

(((where was i?)))

it’s a conversation … a give & take … a connection & communication between musicians
(perhaps, but don’t you think you should consider your audience a bit too)

washes away the dust of everyday life
(that one’s actually quite lovely, but i find water does just as well
& doesn’t make my ears bleed)

musical interlude IV ends abruptly
/my god, my god — do you never stop
this one track has been playing
in the back ground stomping on my brain
noodling along for what feels like days
never ending noodling
noodle noodle noodle
high hat high hat
da-da-da dah toot
da-da-da dah toot
da-da-da dah toot
da-da-da dah toot
da-da-da dah toot
da-da-da dah toot
back to “Shake it Off” for me

arguments against “my not getting it”
if your taste was better cultivated, you’d be able to appreciate it
implication:
like mine is, like i do
(sorry but if jazz were better i would like it
whether or not i could evaluate it on an intermellectual level)

improvisation is EXTREMELY hard
aka:
you don’t like jazz because you can’t play it
(i can’t play any musical instrument in any sort of pleasing way
but that doesn’t stop me liking whole swags of musical styles)

you can’t criticise jazz without understanding it
(um, if it looks like shit & smells like shit
i don’t need to taste it to find out it is shit)

perhaps it’s not jazz music that’s the problem
it’s jazz musicians

or more alarmingly — jazz aficionados

in summation
it’s annoying noise
it’s annoising

repetitive without being groovy
improvisational without being original

if a musician hits the wrong note
they keep playing & try not to hit it again
jazz players hit it again … & again … & again

to be serious for just a moment though
any system where Nina Simone & Ella Fitzgerald
are described by the same word which
includes the warblings of Kenny G & Michael Bublé
is seriously flawed

so there, you’ve caught me out
some early jazz vocalists i don’t not not hate

my idea of hell is being trapped
between the 88th & 89th floor
of a burning skyscraper
& not fearing i’ll fall, but worrying
the smooth jazz soundtrack
piping through the tinny sound system
will last longer than the cable

the best thing about jazz is there’s no chance
of getting a melody stuck in your head
which is great because who wants
jazz stuck in your head anyway

but the final damning nail in the jazz coffin has to be:
that Star Trek: The Next Generation’s
Commander William T. Riker loves it
& he’s the biggest douche out beyond the final frontier

critique complete.

*****

what comes when you have other deadlines

A friend & I are currently doing a trial run for a project we’d like to deliver early next year. This means we are each writing a poem a day (supposedly for all of September, but we’ll see how dry the well gets). It’s similar to a NaPoWrMo — but a theme has been selected & each poem is an exploration of that theme. We intend to invite other poets, set tasks, & look to publish the best of, etc etc. But I digress.

Six days in, it’s exciting but definitely a very challenging task.

Naturally, given that I have a daily deadline & a set topic — I’m finding all sorts of reasons to write those other poems — NOT AT ALL RELATED TO THE POSSIBLE FUTURE PROJECT TEST RUN!!!! — which have been inside for a few months … or are discovered as I research topics only tangentially related to the topic (if at all).

This is good for those BONUS poems (I must be producing 3 for every 1 project poem each day, & fragments / sketches of others). So it’s nice to have a lot of new first drafts under my belt. [Seriously the application of a curfew makes the fun you have after it has expired soooo much more wonderful!] But I hope the designated topic starts turning up some gems soon.

This is one of those offcuts. I don’t actually need to say much more about it, as the poem is a little too self-explanatory (hey it’s only a draft) & will tell its story walkin’. The title, sadly, I think is my favourite part 🙂 But it is, at the very least, a quirky piece of information – definitely worth the share. Thoughts/comments always appreciated.

Johannes Goropius Becanus’s Brabantic Obsession

was it:

hubris, naiveté or desperation to be near
a god that patiently does not exist, or at the last
doesn’t actually care enough to intervene

which led 16th century Dutch amateur linguist
Johannes Goropius Becanus to prove
Brabantic was the language spoken in Paradise?

his key theory:

the world’s original language must be its simplest
& given innocent Brabantic has more short words than
Latin, Greek, & Hebrew — viz. it’s older than all three!

corollary theories:

all languages have bitten from the Brabantic tree
Egyptian hieroglyphics represent Brabantic
Eden was located (you guessed it) in the Brabant

oh — did I mention Brabantic was the language
spoken between the Scheldt & Meuse Rivers
in Holland, the region right where Goropius lived?

IKR, coincidence or what!

*****

Tree of Knowledge by The-Fairywitch

Day 30 – April Thirty: two, for the price of one

NaPoWriMo is over for me for 2014. There’s no need for an introduction cos I say it all in the poem.

NaPoWriMo 2014 meta-poem

i.
this last, a self-referential postmodern effort
where i talk about writing the poem itself
& how even finding the title proved elusive
vacillations between the technoesque
“rebuild”, “reboot”, even “re-de-construct”
to the cliched “fresh start” & “new day”
& the punning “imperfect storm”
it’s been a challenging month on a life front
wherein i survived easter (always a dark time)
dealt with banal bureaucracies who
(simply because they weren’t paid for several months)
disconnected power & phone
was unable to use an expired credit card
risked not being able to drive as my car
was 3 hours away from being unregistered
being cancelled from my artist payment grant
because i hadn’t attended a meeting
searched for long lost medicare & healthcare cards
(finding one out of two) almost missed out
on participating in my new course of study
owing to a clerical error…

… but all that changed today
when my long awaited tax refund
magically appeared in my bank account
& the clouds parted & the sun shone down
& life almost did, literally, start again

ii.
yet despite enduring
all that Real World guff
i’ve scribed & posted
30 poems in 30 days
played a few word games
some less successful than others
received some moving feedback
gone from 0 to 50 followers
(thank you all) & been viewed
over 470 times in 11 countries
all of which helps make my first
NaPoWriMo a true blast

i feel exhausted
sad
drained
strangely addicted
wishing for a few more days
wishing Day 16
had a bigger response
& i could reveal the punchline

i’m gonna miss it like mad
because while i published 30 poems
there’s at least another 30
in various solid draft stages
& 30 more abandoned ideas
that might warrant revisiting
when i have more time & energy
so all in all, a profitable month

it’s good
to be
a poet

BONUS POEM: I began this month with a poem about stars. I want to end it the same way, except this is just about one star. My favourite one.

latecomers to the sunset

people continue to stop suddenly
iPhonestruck fumbling in awe
to snapcapture the wild gold
firestorm our universe is flaring

it’s glorious admittedly but i keep
thinking half-smugly half-sadly
you should have been here
15 minutes ago

*****

Day 26 – April Twenty Six: I’ll be caaaaalllllllllllllling you!

I actually had a pretty good draft of this poem completed by midday. Then I drank some wine. Red wine. Very rich plummy chocolaty tasting red wine. It’s now just after 11pm. (There’s a lesson in there somewhere!)

It’s based on a few notes I made a couple of days ago while dealing with my electricity provider.

powerless

thank you for calling Genesis Energy
please listen carefully as the following options may have changed

to feel frustrated, please press #1
to wish to kill yourself painlessly, please press #2
to be treated like a nameless shleck, please press #3
to be shunted back & forth between a variety of different Customer Assistant Consultants, none of whom will actually assist you, please press #4
to slowly go crazy as you are tag-teamed by a duet of equally perky but highly irritating male & female announcers who banter delightfully as they tell you 28 different versions of — “for other ways you can make a positive difference with Genesis Energy including Solar Heating, please talk to one of our Customer Assistant Consultants … today“, please press #5
to be utterly infuriated by the repeated-every-7-seconds burst of bland but groovy funky elevator jazz music, please press #6
to have your query answered quickly & efficiently, please press #9
(we’re just kidding of course, there is no option #9)

you have selected #5
{click}
thanks for holding
{click}
we apologise for the delay, your call will be answered as soon as possible
{click}
your call is in the queue, and will be answered in approximately < 8 > minutes

*****

Image: Call centre hell

April 16 – Day Sixteen: one of the games i want to play (finally had time)

For those playing at home, here is the first of the games I was hoping to get to for NaPoWriMo — both for me & for you. It’s been exhausting … but a blast!

First. I’m not telling you what inspired these set of poems. That’s the first part of the game. I’d like folks to comment below when they think they have worked out what I’ve done. Heehee. The first person to correctly comment will receive a special prize — AS PART OF NaPoWriMo. I’m excited anyways. NB there are technically three parts to what I’ve done, but I’ll not be too picky. Bonus points, however, if all three are correctly answered.

Second. The poem which has the most comments in support of it, will be used to generate the final image for today’s post. (& sure this could backfire & no one comments, but meh, you gotta try these things out! But I hope people do vote, cos I have such a cool idea for the image …)

Happy guessing … 🙂

ur:title
part i

a.
summer of secrets
april witch, silver wattle
the blood of flowers
i’m a believer
i, my beautiful friend
i the divine, the virgin
shall we dance?

b.
the last summer (of you & me)
you or someone like you
a blind man can see how much
i love you the city of falling
angels, the bay of angels
the indigo sky, the moon
in the water, swim the moon, a web
of dreams slow love, a distant land
the landscape of love
the scared art
of stealing how
to become an angel

exodus, exodus
not the end of the world

c.
tin toys
silences long gone
wise children
burning bright
suspension

the gift of speed

leading the cheers
strange days
tender
a chance acquaintance
the facts speak for themselves

d.
black mulberries jacaranda blue
the stolen child where i was from
fires in the dark the sealed letter
lambs of god the perfect sinner
small acts of kindness the madness
of love burning bright animal instincts
from here to paternity

e.
tales of burning love
the secrets of a fire king
the smoke jumper
the little book
the broken world
the lake of dreams
the girl who would speak for the dead
the rules of attraction
a good & happy child

f.
cold mountain dragon
dancing the clouds
beneath the sun
air kisses standing
in the rainbow
a million little pieces
flying the coop

g.
a sweet obscurity behind the silence
the pure weight of the heart
tasting salt where you find it
the flaw of love the summer i dared
i wish someone were waiting for me somewhere

h3.
barefoot the transit
of venus snow
mountain passage
and the mountains
echoed the falling

woman
stargazer stargazing
a thousand
splendid suns

the absence
of night dreams
of sleep dancing
on thorns

i.
lily,
white

j.
the broken book
the colony of unrequited
dreams requiem

k.
sweet miseries: the history of love
small crimes in an age of abundance
up in the air: in the company of angels

the moon under her feet: the storyteller
the vintner’s luck: this charming man
the other side of the story: measuring the world

trespassing

l.
the new dark age the debt of pleasure
i know this much is true the hour i first believed
a dream come true if the moon smiled

imaginary friends
the seduction of silence
the given day feast of all souls

girls night out fresh girls gifted lost
under the volcano
the hope

m.
oh pure and radiant heart
the speech of angels
cage of stars oxygen
evening end of the night girl
this side of brightness
the last town on earth
the deep end of the ocean
twelve times blessed
lost nation
chronicler of the winds
the colour of water
afloat south of the river
a dry spell simply heaven
farewell princess
so long see you tomorrow
child against gravity
no ordinary love story
a god for the killing

promise not to tell
promise not to tell

*****

April 15 – Day Fifteen: halfway there

Technology makes life pretty awesome for writers. (When it works of course.) I am a big fan of Dropbox. All my writing is saved in there & I can access it from anywhere there’s interwebs. Sadly, Dropbox is clunky when it comes to editing, so I use Plain Text, which syncs with Dropbox. With this PlainText/Dropbox combo I can write a poem on the beach on my phone, edit it on the iPad at a friend’s on the way home & when I open it up on my desktop, the latest version is there, raring to go. It’s brillo.

Autocorrect, however, while brilliant much of the time, doesn’t always know what I want to say. Today’s poem was influenced on a whim, by the quirk of autocorrect.

I was sitting on a bench with the pooch, people watching, sunset waiting, after a nice long walk on the beach. I started to take some notes on a possible “people watching poem”. I began with “The girl who squeaks like a bird”. Except my fat fingers didn’t quite type that. It didn’t cope with the next phrase either … & an idea was born. I immediately created some rules. Well two.

1. Think of the entire line in advance & type as quickly as I could without pausing or backspacing.
2. Accept whatever autocorrect suggested.

Some lines have more autocorrect influence than others, some lines are made gibberishy by the auto; some, somehow more profound; & some just thrilled me no end when they appeared. No lines have been edited (this also means it’s more fun/less work than a regular poem – haha!)

Esplanade Cavalcade (autocorrected)

The girl who squeaks like absurd,
as her patents ignore her
& talk over her head

The brothers who clamber along Hyde rocks,
one of them finds a cram she’ll,
the it get doesn’t want to look

The ring tonight ting yin
gets bike riders

The yummy mummy jogging
with babying pusher
& a well behaved chic lab trotting alongside

The lesbian couple who u saw
being affectionate on the beach before,
now sadly walking diary,
barely together

The cute teen girl in a purple jumper
who smokes at us as she passes,
park duly more at Chester than I

The woman with the jock terrier
who’s bum bounced a nubs of its own
as she briskwalked away

The overlay earnest woman admiring
the moshav art on the rocks
who stops to tell me to look at one further up
called “the last snapper”

The lonely guy sitting on the bench
playing with this phone instead
of watching the sub set,
or the blood mob riding behind him

*****

I couldn’t decide which image to go with … so I’m going with both.

Both images by moi.
Top: “The Last Snapper” cooperative association of Israeli smallholders art.
Bottom: Posing on a Rock. (Such a good boy)

April 13 – Day Thirteen: SUNDAY SILLY (part ii) [Family Caricature]

Today’s effort is inspired by a family lunch.

Disclaimer: It is intended as Caricature Poem only. No resemblance to any person living or deceased is intended (except Aunt Ricky).

family luncheon

sitting down for yet another never-ending family luncheon
i notice what a truly unsightly gaggle we are as a clan

nana’s lazy eye, which double crosses her every time she’s tipsy
dad’s weak chin, still there, despite trying to hide behind a beard

mum’s jagged line of perpetually decaying dental disaster zone
grandpa’s bushy black eyebrows waggling like warring caterpillars

uncle frank’s franciscan friar’s bald patch, a tonsure reflecting god’s light
papa’s broad potato splodge nose, an elephantine red pontiac hit by a brick

sis’s dumbo ears, which if caught in a tornado would transport her to oz
aunt ricky’s wine&pizza-fuelled paunch — no, not 7 months preggers!

gran’s, actually granny is the most attractive one at the table by a country
mile … so nothing to say (besides it’s her birthday so i needs be nice to her)

while i admit i’ve inherited each & every of these delightful genetic quirks
i would stlil have liked the opportunity to pass the whole glad grabbag along
to the next unfortunate generation of freaks, causing equal amounts of angst
embarrassment remorse & bitterness … & the contemplation of plastic surgery

*****

Image: Granny using her cake candles to light her cancer stick.

April 5 – Day Five: modern day celebrations

Although it’s posted a few hours late, this poem was definitely written yesterday. (As Deb Dawson can attest — I was writing it while watched Tom Cruise play, well, um, Tom Cruise, in “Minority Report”.)

A full day, a bunch of drugs (painkiller & hayfever, I’m not that hardcore), a late night & a wishywashy internet connection when I got home prevented an on time posting. Soz.

Once again, the eventual outcome was not the intended topic. It seems so far every day I’ve had an experience which goads me into poetry-attemping mode. “Today” (Yesterday) was attending one of the few modern day equivalents of ritual, myth, celebration, collective communion we still have as a culture. I won’t say much more than that. See if you can work out what I’m doing before the end. Locals are going to be at an advantage to international readers… (so apologies to those three people — hahaha!)

Coliseum of the Crow

like Orpheus we began
by descending
into the bowels of hell
our coin to pay Charon
given us by a bank
to compensate
friends who lost
everything in a fire
cross the Styx
find ourselves
in a deserted
concrete mausoleum
half a dozen cars
where a 1000 should be
elevated into the arena
inside the new stadium
before the gates open
strange to be surrounded
by such vast emptiness
where crowds are
meant to congregate
we laugh out loud
at the surreality

then a siren sounds
startling us from
our spacestaring
the rush is on
we are washed away
by damned souls
for surely we are all
damned … believing
in the cult of the Crow

The Coliseum & Hades: images: moi

gareth roi poet boi

gareth roi's playful poetry place

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Tag Archives: humour

Day 1 – New look blog, new NaPoWriMo season … same old chaos

what comes when you have other deadlines

Day 30 – April Thirty: two, for the price of one

Day 26 – April Twenty Six: I’ll be caaaaalllllllllllllling you!

April 16 – Day Sixteen: one of the games i want to play (finally had time)

April 15 – Day Fifteen: halfway there

April 13 – Day Thirteen: SUNDAY SILLY (part ii) [Family Caricature]

April 5 – Day Five: modern day celebrations

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